


Highs and Lows

by AutumnPen



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Heero interferes because he cares, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 06:25:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1847785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnPen/pseuds/AutumnPen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Relena's job is stressful, but Duo, who has become one of her closest friends, knows just how to make her feel better.</p><p>When Duo's at his lowest, Relena returns the favor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Highs and Lows

When all else fails, Duo can make Relena laugh.

When the strain of her political duties takes a heavier toll than usual, and even Heero can't get a smile with their odd shared sense of humor, he knows who can.

He calls Duo. “I have a mission for you,” he says.

This initially sends Duo an anxious tizzy, because when Heero Yuy, perfect soldier, calls you with a mission it usually means some serious shit is going down. But when Heero explains, Duo's apprehension is immediately lifted, and he's grinning as he agrees because this is his favorite kind of mission. He drops Relena a line, telling her to plan to clear her schedule for a night sometime later this week, and by the way, what do you want to eat? A few days later, Duo shows up with an overnight bag and a couple of the nearest fast food joint's burgers and milkshakes.

Relena didn't often have sleepovers as a child. She remembers once, for her birthday, her parents letting her have a few girls from school over, but it hadn't gone anything like she was hoping. She'd wanted to watch movies, to play games, have fun. The other girls were too busy trying to prove themselves to her to notice how put-out she got with them after the first hour of their company. (She'd called them her friends but they never really felt like friends. Friends were interested in you for you, not because of who your parents were.)

She wishes she and Duo could have known each other when they were younger – really known each other, been friends, not just two kids wrapped up in the shady plans of the same malevolent super organizations hell-bent on taking over the Earth Sphere. Within twenty minutes of his arrival, they're dressed down to pajamas and Duo's leaning back against her legs while she sits on her wide bed. Half of her fries sit untouched for the moment and Duo is stuffing the last bit of his burger in his mouth. His hair is undone and spilling across her lap while she brushes it out in long, smooth strokes.

“So, anyway, I was wondering why Quatre kept twitching every timed I moved and then Trowa said later that it was because I set the cup down too hard every time I put it back on it's stupid little saucer and how was I supposed to know! I learned a lot of stuff after the Father and Sister Helen took me in but, y'know, somehow they never imagined that I'd need to know tea time etiquette.”

Relena bites her lip as Duo continues. “Why does it have to be so damn complicated anyway? It's grass water! I don't even like tea, y'know, I was just trying to be nice when Quatre invited me. And he kept doing that thing where he's just smiling it off but you know he's really disappointed and he said there'd be cookies and I don't know what it his he gave me but they were the sorriest excuse for cookies I've ever had in my WHOLE LIFE. And I spent a year snacking on communion wafers!”

Relena's bent double now, her nose pressing into the back of his head and shaking with laughter. Duo grins to himself and tilts his head back once she straightens to get a look at her. She's flushed in the face and has taken to covering her mouth with one hand, her other still clutching the brush and a long lock of his hair.

Once she catches her breath she smiles down at him. “I could teach you tea etiquette,” she offers.

“Eh, I dunno,” he says with a shrug.

“You'd really impress Quatre the next time he had you over.”

“If he ever has me over again,” he grumbles, crossing his arms petulantly.

“Well,” she laughs, “my offer stands.”

Later that night they do break out one of Relena's old tea sets – one of the ones she kept more for their sentimental value than anything else. It's old and plastic, cracked and paint chipping – the tea set she'd used as a child during playtime. The same set she'd set out with plastic pastries when her father had time to play with her, when she'd pretended to pour tea into his cup while asking him how many lumps of sugar he'd like. 

Duo spends most of the their pretend tea party making exaggerated faces – holding his tea cup with one pinky out and speaking in a high, nasally voice. There's a lot more giggling than would be altogether proper at an actual tea party, but Relena is satisfied that, by the end of it, Duo has absorbed something, at least, that will please his tea-drinking companions in the future.

Duo, on the other hand, is satisfied that Relena's shoulders don't look like they're bearing quite as much weight for the time being.

 -----------

There comes the time, however, when even Duo forgets how to laugh and smile.

Rehabilitation has not been easy for him. Of the five boys, he remained in stubborn denial of the effects the war left on his mental well-being the longest. (Whereas the other four, having at least acknowledged their mental instability, were all at very different points of [not] willing to deal with it.)

It was easy to deny it all – to insist that he was fine, of course he was fine! How could he be anything but? He thought he was pretty convincing, too – except for the fact that the littlest things would sometimes send him into a full-fledged panic attack.

He's watching some movie with Hilde and a character shoots off a gun. He's picking up groceries at the convenience store down the road when an employee leaves the break room and slams the door behind them. Hilde holds him while he tries to even out his breathing against her neck. He drops his bags and reaches for a weapon he doesn't carry anymore. When it passes, he laughs. Oh, that was embarrassing. Wasn't that silly of me? Let's finish the movie. Sorry for the mess, let me pick that back up.

His friends all offer help in their own ways. They tell him that it's okay, that it's nothing to be ashamed of, needing help. It takes a lot of kind words and gestures from Quatre, from Hilde, from Relena and Trowa and so many others, along with some not-so-kind words from Heero, before Duo finally agrees to start seeing someone. Sally sets him up with a good psychiatrist.

But even after that, it's not easy. He fights it a lot of the time because he doesn't know how to not. He's spent so many years fighting, it just seems natural. It takes so much out of him and he catches himself getting snappy and irritable when he has time to talk with those who care about him. He feels particularly bad when he snips at Hilde or Quatre, or when he can barely manage to be tolerable when Sally calls to check in on him.

Heero thinks he knows who he should call.

Relena is as busy as ever, but she sends Duo a text to let him know she's cleared a weekend and she'd like to come spend it with him, if he doesn't mind too terribly much.

Duo is surprised. Like, genuinely stunned. Of course Relena's kept in touch with him, when she has the time, but he can't remember the last time she came over for a visit. He wonders if something's wrong. He wonders if she just really badly needs to get away. He takes a moment to bemoan the fact that he's probably not going to be the best company for her right now, but he can't tell her no. He agrees and sets about cleaning the apartment in preparation.

Relena shows up with a weekend bag, with board games, with her plastic tea set and her brush. She shows up with a determined glint in her eye and a smile on her lips.

Duo doesn't know what to think but he shows her in. She sets her things down by his couch and they sit down to catch up for a while. Duo forgets that she hasn't given him a reason for showing up and is just glad that she did.

Later that night, they've ordered pizza and are sprawled out on his bed. His head is pillowed on her outer thigh, near her knee, and she's laying on her side, propped up on one elbow while her other hand plays with his hair. She's telling him about how she nearly gave some old rich dude an aneurysm at the last such-and-such meeting for the such-and-such talks.

He's laughing softly as she explains the exact shade of purple-y red this gentlemen's face turned. Relena pauses, looking at him, and smiles. It's not much, she thinks, but, if that's all he can mange for now, it's enough.

It takes a moment to realize he's met her gaze, eyes questioning, unsure why she's stopped. She shakes her head and continues her story.

She stays with him while he falls asleep, with him tucked between the wall and where she sits on the the outside of the bed, reading by lamp light.

“Relena?” His voice comes, groggy, long after she thought he'd drifted off.

“Yes?”

“S'something wrong? What made you come out all this way?”

She marks her page, shuts her book. “No, Duo, nothing's wrong.”

“...Then why'd you come?”

She finger combs his hair silently for a few moments before answering. “I have a mission.”

Duo's sleepy mind spends several moments trying to guess at the meaning of her words. He gives up. “...What's you mission?”

“You are.”

Several more moments of silence before he replies with a soft, “Oh.” He curls in closer to her side, one hand clutching at her top. She pretends not to notice when he sniffles softly, going back to reading with one hand buried in his hair until his breathing evens out again.

Returning the laughter he gave her in the first place is the least she can do, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Recently started rewatching Gundam Wing with my fiance and it has ruined me. I'm waist deep in post-series headcanons where everyone's friends and I want to write all the things.
> 
> For those curious about the "odd shared sense of humor" line, I posted about that on my tumblr in a weird headcanon-turned-fic-like-thing that I don't think it written well enough to post here. But follow [this link ](http://unnoticed-and-necessary.tumblr.com/post/89188112409/gw-headcanon-time) if you want a little insight into what I think post-series Heero and Relena's friendship would be like.


End file.
